Twitter, Celebrities and Not Following

I love twitter and have been using it for years. I find it better to use than other social media sites, it my short sharp shock of update for the people I am interested in.

If you want to follow me please do http://twitter.com/SeanJC

First off I am going to talk about what I think is wrong with Twitter.

My Thoughts for Twitter Followers and Following Rules

You may or may not know that Twitter has rules about how many people you are allowed to follow based on the amount of people that follow you, the ratio is basically 200% you can follow twice as many people that follow you. For example if you have 10 followers you can follow 20 people.

Now in my view this is just wrong, I think you should be able to follow as many people as you like, after all Twitter is all about keeping up to date with people that you are interested in, just like a bit of mini news if you like, and you should be able to follow 1 million people is you wish.

I think these rules need to change and what I think should happen is that, as Twitter is about following and followers, I think that you should only be able to have people follow you if you follow people. Now I am not saying that you should be forced to follow everyone back, but I think that in order to allow new followers you should be first following a percentage of your followers.

Lets say in order to get new followers you need to be following at least 10% of the amount of people that follow you. For example if you have 100 people following you, you should not be able to get any more new followers until you follow 10 people or 10% of your followers.

I also think that in order to keep your Twitter account active you must be made to Tweet often, say every 30 days. After all Twitter is about a live interaction and social news feed and if your feed gets of out date it becomes a bit pointless, or if your feed is empty that is also a bit useless. This could be slightly modified to say you have to at least tweeted once and then maybe just log in to your account ever month.

Now after using twitter for quite a while I have noticed that there are a few things that I dont understand, these are

1. Celebrities

Now love em or hate em they are part of our life and they use twitter, well most of them do. The thing I dont like or understand for that matter is that why do some celebrities only follow fellow celebs, and all their tweets are directed at fellow celebs. Whats the point in that? I mean do they really think that their fellow celeb is going to buy their album? probably not. This excludes everyone else as Twitter is the ideal platform to get your message out, so just make sure you get it to all you followers and don't annoy most of them by excluding them in your tweets.

Another think I hate is Z listers, you know the type the TV personalities who think they are actually A list celebrities, if you ever tweet them they ignore you and again only follow other celebs, and all tweets are between them and other celebs. Twitter is not your personal little communication tool, I mean if they really knew other celebs personally they would be able to SMS them or even call them on the phone.

Seems the only time you see celebrities talking to non celebrities is when someone throws some abuse at them and they will respond, but if you send a message of well done or something similar it gets ignored. Reminds me of Rolf Harris, he was part of the Diamond Jubilee celebrations in the UK, and I sent him a tweet saying well done, did I get a reply, no, but someone who throw some abuse at him got into a full conversation on Twitter with him.

So my advise to celebrities on twitter is simple, first off use Twitter yourselves, dont farm it out to your PR person and secondly respond to your followers, even if you get a million @'s a day these people are your bread and butter so don't annoy them.

I have to say a big thank you to @SuziPerry (Gadget Show Presenter) she takes the time to respond to her followers and is a lesson to other celebrities, it only takes a few seconds to say thanks.

2. Constant Promotion

Now celebrities are not the only ones guilty of this, I find on Twitter there is nothing worse than people that only tweet stuff about themselves, by this I mean such as links to their website, or shouting about their latest album coming out. Twitter is a great way for everyone no matter where you are in life to connect, so I wish people would stop using it as an advertising tool and nothing else.

Dont get me wrong, people follow you for a reason, and they will be interested in your latest blog post, website, album or whatever, but this must be mixed with other tweets, stuff in general about what you are doing and alike.

3. Not following Anyone

Now this is where the whole world of Twitter really goes bad, the people on Twitter who don't follow anyone or only follow a few people. This totally defeats the point in Twitter, the idea of Twitter is to keep up to date with other people and share your world, if you are not following anyone that only means you are only interested in yourself and self promotion.

In my experience celebrities are the biggest people to do this, off the top of my head Stephen Colbert @StephenAtHome (who presents the Colbert Report) is following no one, another one of the top of my head is JK Rowling @JK_Rowling (the Harry Potter Author) she is only following one other Twitter user, her Harry Potter account. I think you get the picture these people need to wake up and stop being so arrogant, if they are not interested in others people will stop being interested in them.

Thanks for Reading
Sean J Connolly
 FaceBook Me

BuzzProperties.co.uk - Online Property Sales and Letting

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Twitter for Blackberry

Following on from my last post I would like to throw a recommendation out there for anyone using a BlackBerry or other SmartPhone. When you are out and about remember to keep on tweeting, and I think the best way to do this is to use the Twitter mobile app, I use the Twitter for Blackberry application and have done so some time. Its so easy to tweet and add photos, making my mobile tweeting so much easier.

AND NOW

There has just been a new update to the Twitter mobile application and you can now send tweets from more than more account, meaning if your like me and have several twitter accounts you can now Tweet from them all using the same phone and Twitter application.

Well done Blackberry (RIM) and well done Twitter.

If you use a Blackberry you can download the latest Twitter for Blackberry from the app store more info is available HERE

Thanks Sean J Connolly
 FaceBook Me -

  BuzzProperties.co.uk - Online Property Sales and Letting

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Why You Should Continue to Use Twitter

OK I use Twitter, infact you can follow me at my main account which is http://twitter.com/SeanJC I do have other twitter accounts http://twitter.com/potissimus and http://twitter.com/buzzproperties so please feel free to follow me and stay in touch.

Why do I use Twitter?

I continue to use Twitter as unlike the typical social networking sites on Twitter you can say what you want and people will see it, and as you are not looking for a direct interaction I find it a good place to update people who are actually interested in what you do, with why you are doing.

As people who follow you on twitter have chosen to be kept up to date with your world. Unlike typical social media where people are looking for direct interaction, I use Twitter as its more like shouting out your news, after all you watch the evening news without any interaction back you just absorb what they tell you.

I find Twitter is the same as I only follow people I find interesting, so when I read my Twitter timeline its full of interesting things, which I can absorb and if I find something really interesting I can retweet, direct message or mention someone in my own tweet. So for every tweet I do I am not looking for anyone to confirm they have read it, such as we do with Likes on FaceBook and +1' on Google+, this way you can remove the stress of trying to be popular with the benefit of simply getting your message across to people that want to hear it.

The Future of Twitter

I think that Twitter will be around for a long time to come, as it takes the best element of social media and breaks it down, as everyday you may update your status on your chosen social media site, but you can't get a list of interesting stuff that you want to know about. So unlike social media Twitter is centred more on interests than people, and this I think will mean people like myself will use it for a long time to come.

I do think that there may be a time where we see more advertising directly on twitter, sponsored or otherwise, but in short I think the idea of Twitter is here to stay.

Please follow me on Twitter - http://twitter.com/SeanJC

Thanks
Sean J Connolly

FaceBook Me

BuzzProperties.co.uk - Online Property Sales and Letting

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Google + Goes Live to Public

Well after months of invites, BETA testing and alike the new kid on the clock has finally arrived. Google + is now live to the public. So what does this mean for you, me and FaceBook, LinkedIn.

In reality it means that with this launch there are now two big social networking sites to use for your social side of life, LinkedIn is still the only truely business social networking site.

 But what about Twitter you ask, well in reality nothing will change for Twitter as it is and always has been a social media micro blog or stream, simply put its like a hit of espresso to keep you up to date with stuff that interests you, unlike the more cappuccino like take a seat you may be here a while approach of FaceBook and Google +.

In my view the launch of Google + going public will pretty much leave twitter untouched, but as for FaceBook there will be some people who more over to the new player, and others who stay put. I still think at present FaceBook is a bit more interesting than Google +.

I am going to stick my neck on the line and say FaceBook will continue to dominate this area for a while at least.

But what about the New FaceBook Changes?

As you may have noticed FaceBook's response to this go live of Google + has been to add new features to its platform, side news feed, larger photos, sharing etc. This is aimed at retaining FaceBook users, however I dont really see the benefit of copying Google +, after all that is just like admitting "yes it is better than FaceBook". I think FaceBook does know some users will leave to go to Google +, but I think overtime FaceBook will continue to have a larger continuous userbase than Google +.

So although Facebook feel it necessary to fight and copy the new platform, it seems daft to copy. Why not keep FaceBook as FaceBook and come up with new original ideas, not copied ones.

The Future

This is pretty simple really I think that the following will become reality for the platforms.

FaceBook - Continue to have the largest base of users on a regular basis, and introduce new features like video chat, etc.

Google+ - Will have the largest overall registered users, but a lower daily user rate.

Twitter - Will continue to be the daily aggregator of everything social, news and media. Users levels will continue to grow as people want and need instant updates without all the bells and whistles.

LinkedIn - Continue to have a large following with people keeping this platform solely for business and business connections. In most cases having totally different social circles than Google+ or FaceBook.

What About Me

Well at present I still use FaceBook, Google+, LinkedIn and Twitter. My most used platform has to be Twitter (its the only one I use on my mobile), it gives me the quick hit of info I need on the go. I keep social side of my world to FaceBook and Google+ and my business side solely to LinkedIn.

Feel free to connect with me on which every platform you choose.

Follow Me on Twitter
Add me on FaceBook
Connect on Google +
Add me on LinkedIn

So as it what the future holds for social networking, only time will tell, but in the mean time please feel free to connect.



Thanks For Reading
Sean J Connolly

 FaceBook Me
BuzzProperties.co.uk - Online Property Sales and Letting

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